£400 million ($668 million) will be spend on installing and monitoring CCTV cameras in the homes of private citizens. Why? To make sure the kids are doing their homework, going to bed early and eating their vegetables. The scheme has, astonishingly, already been running in 2,000 family homes.
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It gets worse. The government is also maintaining a private army, incredibly not called “Thought Police”, which will “be sent round to carry out home checks,” according to the Sunday Express. And in a scheme which firmly cements the nation’s reputation as a “nanny state”, the kids and their families will be forced to sign “behavior contracts” which will “set out parents’ duties to ensure children behave and do their homework.”
And remember, this is the left-wing government. The Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling, batting for the conservatives, thinks these plans are “too little, and too late,” implying that even more obtrusive work needs to be done. Rumors that a new detention center, named Room 101, is being constructed inside the Ministry of Love are unconfirmed.
He was off by a few years, but hey, he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1949. I have trouble predicting technology or politics even five years in advance.
Update: Phil has more and this link to another article. For some reason I find it amusing and appropriate the government bureaucrat doing this is “Children’s Secretary Ed Balls”.
However, in the comments there appears to be some question about the truthfulness of the report:
IS THE DAILY EXPRESS MAKING THIS UP?
04.08.09, 4:04pm
This announcement has been reported elsewhere (eg see Daily Mail, The Times) but no-one else has mentioned anything about CCTV being involved. Especially not in people’s own homes.
For instance, check the offical government announcement here:
http://www.respect.gov.uk/members/article.aspx?id=8678
http://www.respect.gov.uk/members/article.aspx?id=8846Apparently, in very extreme cases familes may be moved from estates to ‘core residential units’ for 24 hour support and supervision, but this is very different from the alarmist report of the government planning to put “20,000 problem families under 24-hour CCTV super-vision”
So, to cut a long story short, the Daily Express seems to have misunderstood this initiative somewhat. Which is a shame because this report has been picked up and discussed all over the internet over the last few days.
Wonder how many Muslim homes will have one to make sure they aren’t indoctrinating their childern with hate speech.
If they can do one home, it’s just a matter of time before they do them all.
At first I thought this was a joke. Now. . . . all I can say is, WTF!!
This is just SO wrong, on SO many levels. Privacy issues. Spending money the gov’t doesn’t have. Setting up a monitoring infrastrusture, and hiring the staff. More privacy issues (who’s going to do what with the information that’s gathered). And enforcement? And if you don’t want it, will you be forced to have it installed anyway?
It’s a wonder the Brits are putting up with this. Nanny Statism run rampant. Ayn Rand is spinning like a top in her grave. Lennin, Stalin, et al, are dancing with glee in hell.
It would almost be fun to be a fly on the wall, or a ghost, to be able to f**k with the system from the inside. To begin to have fun is simple. Just take a picture of the room, from the same point where the camera will be installed. Then suspend the picture in front of the camera lens. ‘Nuff said there. Imagine the possibilities if you’re electronically talented. . .
Please tell me this is a joke. Or some sci-fi writer’s nightmare. Or something. Anything other then reality.
Orwell was an optimist.